Thirteen
by shadowsinfire
Summary: Spoilers for Kakashi Gaiden. Kakashi, Rin, and Obito are thirteen, and all they've ever known is war. [edited]


Yeah... this was written when I was half asleep. But I'm really pleased with the last part.

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Kakashi is thirteen, and he's already lost track of the men he's killed. Every day means a new enemy, another poor soul dead.

He's an expert at killing people, destroying lives and minds, and he's never had a proper childhood.

This is a time of war, after all.

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Rin is thirteen, and she can't remember a time when she didn't know the reality of war. She's a medic, but she now knows how to stop a heart with the same jutsu she used to use to keep one going.

She's seen the people she loves covered in blood and gore, and has been covered in it herself more times than she cares to think of. And every day, another person she cares about dies.

She's lucky. She's survived so far.

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Obito is thirteen, and his eyes see more clearly than others twice his age. He doesn't need the sharingan to see how Rin shakes as cleans her hands of blood for the fifth time in a day, rubbing obsessively at the crimson stains. He doesn't need it to see Kakashi's haunted eyes, as he wakes from another nightmare and stares into the distance.

He doesn't need the sharingan to see that he is not cut out for war.

But he has no choice but to keep going.

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Kakashi is thirteen, and he's just seen his best friend die. Obito's crimson eye rests beneath his eyelid, and tears spill from it in the cold night air.

He is expert in controlling his emotions, and even now, that skill stays with him. His face is impassive under the stream of tears. He knows that later he will break down , when he is alone, but now he has people to fight and people to protect, so he steels himself and raises his head, and doesn't look back.

There will be time for that later.

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Rin is thirteen, and she has never been more aware of her shortcomings. She, for all her power and control, couldn't save the life of one of her best friends. She is terribly conscious of how Obito had come to save her - that if he hadn't, he might still be alive now.

And Kakashi stands in front of her, between the enemy and herself, and she tells herself once and for all that she will never need to be protected again.

It's a promise she intends to keep.

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Obito is thirteen, and he is dying.

He has never kissed a girl, he has never gotten drunk (except for one time when he was four, but that was an accident, and didn't count). He has never said 'I love you', and in his lifetime he has known nothing but war.

As the world fades to black, he hopes that his friends will have a chance where he did not, and will live to see peace return to their homes.

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Kakashi is no longer thirteen, but his resolve is the same as it was that day. However, as he watches first Rin, then his teacher die, unable to save them, he decides that he must work harder. He trains obsessively, learns every jutsu he can see. He joins the ANBU, becomes a squad leader, but something's still missing.

After several years he retires, gets assigned groups of rookies year after year after year, and passes none of them. His test is the hardest of all, he knows; but life is hard, and war is harder, and both have made him what he is today.

One day though, unexpectedly, impossibly, one group passes his test. He knows then, that these will be the children who he will risk his life for next, the team he will watch grow up, from children, to teenagers, to adults with goals of their own.

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Obito is thirteen years dead, but a part of him is still watching from Kakashi's eye. He saw Rin and Yondaime die, he watched as Kakashi lost touch with life, slowly, gradually, and he watches when one day that life comes back with a vengeance, in the form of three kids, only a little younger than he was when he died.

He watches Naruto smile, laugh, fight, cry, win. He watches Sasuke learn, grow, despair, be won back, smile once again. He watches Sakura lose her temper, gain victories, grow more confident, live. And as thirteen years turn into thirty, he watches the children surpass their teachers, and in a neverending cycle, take students of their own.

And he wonders how far they still have to go.

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Hope you liked it.


End file.
